I was wondering if it had ever crossed the Dev's minds to ditch the Java version of the Asset Map an replace it with a Flash version?
Only reason I mention it, is that it constantly locks my IE (or Firefox) browser up. It looks the sort of thing that Flash would be pretty good at…any thoughts?
In a corp environment I'm thinking Flash might be more widespread that Java as well?
What do ya think?
Cheers
Dale
Actually, we ditched the Flash version and replaced with the Java version. Flash cannot scale to the size of the websites we are currently supporting in MySource Matrix (10 million assets and counting).
Indeed, the flash version of the asset map had problems with just a few 100 assets in the tree. It was very memory hungry and was not very responsive at all. We were also limited to only left mouse clicks as right clicking in flash files brought up a settings screen.
Interesting. I know you have to support sites with millios of assets, I wouldn’t imagine that translates to all of them being viewable in the asset manager at once though. (ie porgressively loading as menus open)
anyways, good to know you’ve at least given it a whirl. Not sure if you’ve come accross it in your travellings of other CMS systems. But Manifest has a pretty neat clientside admin app (written in Delphi I believe, but could just as easily be written in something more multi platform (Realbasic??). Obviously it would require a download and install though, so that’s breaking the model you’ve chosen. Web browsers do have their limits though, sometimes a good old fashion desktop App isn’t a bad thing IMHO.
Cheers
Dale
Heh, the extent of our desktop client is me claiming a product name about two years ago and then doing nothing about it. 
I wonder if it'd be worth looking into using Ajax for the asset map - that'd eliminate the need for plug-ins and and the various issues the java applet raises. It'd also make for a much quicker initial page load when accessing _admin.
This is just a thought really, Ajax seems to be the thing right now :lol:
Here's a nice article :http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php
I'd very much doubt we would bother converting over the asset map to AJAX. AJAX doesnt actually do anything for you when it comes to the interface. Sure it can request data in the background, but the asset map already does that with Java.
I guess its important to realise that AJAX doesn't really mean anything - its a marketing term to describe techniques JS developers have been using for a while.
All AJAX really does is cause you to use JavaScript to do your interfaces, and that is the last thing we need. To be fair to Java, its is better at being cross-platform than JavaScript for what we want to do. At least you dont have to worry about IE/Mozilla like with JS. You still need to consider OS (Win/OS X/Linux) but you need to do that with JS too.
AJAX might be a marketing term, but that doesn't mean it's not a useful technology. A JavaScript/XHTML based tree structure that used AJAX to read in its data would probably:
a) be nice and quick to load (because you don't need the jvm)
b) be cross browser friendly (this is quite easy to acheive)
c) provide for better usability in the backend (font sizes etc)
d) reduce the browser dependencies for using Matrix.
Whilst it wouldn't be trivial programming exercise, I do think the idea has merit. But given that the Java version does a pretty good job, is it really necessary?
We will not be putting in a JS based tree into Matrix. Every other JS based project has caused problems for us. Why would a tree and admin panel that the system relies heavily on be any different? I'm am certain that we could build it, but am equally as certain that we would realise half way through that it was a bad idea for very large systems.
AJAX has been around since Microsoft wrote their web frontend for Outlook (even longer, but NO-ONE knew about it). It’s not a new concept, just one that’s become increasingly popularised by Google and has a fancy schmancy new name (what, XML HTTP Request not a good enough name for you huh?). Refactoring Matrix to make use of it would be a major PITA.
Now, what can I use to distract you as I make my escape? Oh look, a screencast! runs
Just add drag & drop. 
I'm actually building drag and drop into a treeview for prado at the moment. I have now come loathe javascript ;).
[quote]Actually, we ditched the Flash version and replaced with the Java version. Flash cannot scale to the size of the websites we are currently supporting in MySource Matrix (10 million assets and counting).
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I’m actually a new member here and have yet to install Matrix, so forgive me if I’m touching on old, out-of-date information.
In the interest of speed and usability, Java is quite poor for a front end. The reasoning above is hogwash - Flash can handle hundreds of thousands of entries loaded into the client side environment and parse and display them at will quite quickly. I’ve loaded up half a million elements through nice long XML requests - and parsed and stored them in a set of arrays (similar to a RecordSet).
Flash 9, being a JIT environmet, is almost as fast as Java in it’s execution speed. I’ll also add in that there’s no reason you would ever load up 10 million assets (or even 10 thousand) at a time on the front end.
My main question then is - can the entire interface for Matrix be written in Flash, technically speaking? This includes all administrative and user side interfaces. If so, then this is something I may definitely be interested in (either as an opensource or as a custom build).
Feel free to reply either in the forum or via email. I’m interested in hearing if anyone has integrated Flash as the front end of the system.
[quote]My main question then is - can the entire interface for Matrix be written in Flash, technically speaking?
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Technically speaking, yes I’m sure it could.
[quote]Flash 9, being a JIT environmet, is almost as fast as Java in it’s execution speed. I’ll also add in that there’s no reason you would ever load up 10 million assets (or even 10 thousand) at a time on the front end.
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Flash 9 is relatively new, and was definately not available when we developed the asset map (2004). At that time flash was horribly slow, especially on the mac. (flash 9 was the first version on the mac where animation was actually quite snappy). As mentioned, we originally developed the asset map in flash, which simply couldn’t cut it at that time.
[quote]Flash 9 is relatively new, and was definately not available when we developed the asset map (2004). At that time flash was horribly slow, especially on the mac. (flash 9 was the first version on the mac where animation was actually quite snappy). As mentioned, we originally developed the asset map in flash, which simply couldn’t cut it at that time.
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I completely agree, though Flash 8 is pretty fast too, by the way. After the reply, I did realize that the information was quite old (over a year … year and a half), so things have changed since then.
I’m right now evaluating a few different technologies for a digital asset management solution - and it seems as though MySource has a lot of what I’m looking for, in terms of backend functionality.
The front-end is the part that I’m hoping could be developed in Flash, from a portability (standalone and web-based tools) and usability standpoint.
Is there a possiblity of having the asset map available as a FLA or source code so that someone who might be interested could re-write it using the latest and greatest Flash IDE?
[quote]Is there a possiblity of having the asset map available as a FLA or source code so that someone who might be interested could re-write it using the latest and greatest Flash IDE?
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All of the Java Asset Map’s source code is available in the download tarball. The original Flash Asset Map is way too out of date to be useful, I suspect.
Perhaps it is time to look at Flash again.
If a client wants to fund the redevelopment of a Flash Asset Map, then they're more than welcome to request a quote.